Tagged: How to make resin jewelry

Today, rockin’ crafts take center stage! First, we break the mold, designing some hard core resin jewelry. Then, we belt out stylin’ ideas for buckles that burst with glitz and glam! And, we;ll tear through a tee technique that’s totally cutting edge! Sine like a rock start, right now on Creative Juice!

You don’t have to be a rock start to appreciate some edgier fashion style, like this resin guitar pick necklace. But, you can be a fan of creating your own resin style jewelry. Fun, funky and easy to do, and we’re gonna show you how!

Creating resin jewelry isn’t as scary or intimidating as it may appear. It’s actually very easy, and considering how many you can get out of these 2 bottles, it’s very cost effective. So, we got these 2 bottles at the craft store. They come as a kit. You also want to purchase a mold, like this one here. They come in a lot of different shapes and sizes. We’re gonna be making the oval one right here. And, these cost about $1.50 – really cheap.

Now, you also need to purchase some food grade silicone, and before you put your resin in, you have to spray the entire sheet with the silicone. Or, at least the mold that you’re gonna be using. Now this is kind of a lubricant, so when the resin hardens, it’s very easy to pop out and it’s not gonna stick to your mold. And we’ve gone ahead and just pre-sprayed these.

The next thing you want to do is choose what you want to embed. You can embed so many different things. I’ve got fun beads here, you could do this confetti – what I used to put in cards all the time and it would spill everywhere, stars and heart shapes! We’re gonna be using a guitar pick for ours. Now, we went and purchased these little tiny cups, these little measuring cups. You can get them at hobby stores or at medical supply stores, and they’re great because they have all different kinds of measurements all the way around. We’re gonna be using the drams measurement.

Now, we’re using 2 part resin, so let’s pour that right in.

Don’t forget your gloves!

Oh, yeah – gloves! Thanks for reminding me! You definitely want to wear gloves on this, because if it gets on your skin, it will burn you. We’re ready! OK, so, I’m doing 2 drams of the resin, and you really need to measure carefully, because even a small discrepancy can make your final resin too soft or too brittle. And, I’m doing 2 drams of the hardener. Like that. Now, I want to mix this up. I use these tiny, little popsicle sticks here. You want to mix this slowly for about 2 minutes, and avoid all air bubbles. That’s why I’m going really slow and just gently blending this together. Now, you can see it’s kind of foggy right now. You want to wait til it gets a little bit clear. The more you blend it, the clearer it’s gonna get. So now, I’m just gonna go around these edges here and scrape the sides and just make sure that it’s all blended very nicely together.

OK, I think our 2 minutes area about up. What I’m going to do is pour it into our 2nd cup here. Just make sure it’s all completely, completely blended all nicely together. And now, I’m just gonna remix this for about 30 seconds is all you have to do. And this will really help to make sure that all that’s blended together. All right, our resin is ready to pour. There you go, Cathie!

Thank you! We’re gonna pour it into our mold. We’re gonna fill it about halfway up, and then we’re ready to embed our guitar pick. I’m gonna use a tweezer here, and go in with a popsicle stick and coat the front and back of this, and that’s gonna help it slide right into place without creating any more air bubbles. If you were using paper or fabric, you would want to make sure that you coated them with some sort of a spray polyurethane or a decoupage medium before embedding them. Then, place it face down, because we want that to show. And we’ll just top it off with the rest of the resin. I’m not gonna go all the way to the top of the mold, cause if you did, you may get a lip once it’s dry, and then you’d have to go in with a file and file that away.

And, there you go! It’s really as easy as that. Now, you just want to set this aside for 3 days. Let it dry for a good 3 days. Completely cure it up. Now, this is for a clear one. We do want to show you how to add color, which is so fun! Blues, reds, greens, every color you can possibly imagine! This one here has been drying for one day. So, we already have our resin down, and we still have some room at the top. So what we’re gonna do is, we’re gonna add some dye to our resin, mix it together and pour a layer right on top, just like this one. So it’s basically just the back of it that’s giving this whole entire thing the color. If you were to mix all of the resin green – add some dye to all the resin and pour it on top – you would not be able to see this pick. It would completely cover it. Look at that. Just the tiniest little amount of dye here. Got a little bit extra. Place that right in there. And these dyes are specifically made for this.

A little bit goes a long way, doesn’t it?

Yea. Same thing, you don’t want to stir it too aggressively, you don’t want to create any more air bubbles. Now we’re ready to just pour it right on top. Ooh, that looks great with the yellow – nice, soft green. And, there you go! Same thing, you just want to set this aside for 3 days.

Now, we’re ready to pop out our guitar pick. Here’s the one that we did. What we just showed you how to do, this one has been drying for 3 days and it’s as simple as just popping it out, just like this. Put your thumb right on the bottom, move it around a little bit, and there it is! Pretty nice, huh?

Now, we just need to create a pendant out of it. It’s very simple. We’re just using the Fiskar drill, here. Just a hand drill. We’ve got a 1/8th inch drill bit, and we’re just gonna drill straight onto this – it’s so easy! You could use a power drill if you wanted to, but this just works so great. You can see how easy. I’m not even using one muscle!

There we go! Let’s dust this off. If you’ve got any little sharp edges here, you might want to use a little file. This little round file works nicely. Put it through, just kind of spin it around here. You could use a bead reamer if you have bead reamer at home. And remember, all the instructions on resin are at our website, DIYNetwork.com.

So, to get started with the wire wrapping, I’ve just got a small piece of wire here and it’s very flexible, and I’m gonna place that right through he hole that we drilled, just like that. And, you want to go ahead and just wrap one of them, just kind of coiling it around. Now I’ve got a wire cutter here, and I’m gonna cut away this excess. Go in with my pliers and flatten that down. Now I just need to create a little loop at the top. To do that, you just want to bend back your wire, then come on forward with it. Let’s make a pretty good size. I’m gonna leave a little bit of length on there, and we’ve got ourselves one inexpensive pendant.

Well done, Cath! Now all we need to do is, we’re just gonna string some chain right through it. You can buy ball chain by the foot, or if you have an old necklace laying around, just revamp it with a new resin pendant! There you have it, you wanna try it on?

I would love to try that on! So, have some fun with resin and make some jewelry! Coming up – we buckle down with a belt project that’s flashy and flamboyant! So strap yourself in with more Creative Juice!

For our rocker episode, I’m gonna belt one out…aww just kidding I’m not gonna sing a tune! But, I’m gonna craft up a really fun, rocker-inspired belt. First thing that you’re gonna need is a belt blank. Just go online and search for belt buckle blanks. They’re about 6 bucks and they come in tons of different styles. I’ve got some paper cut-outs here, and this one here, the crown, is just a font that I enlarged on the computer. This one here is just a piece of wrapping paper, and I spelled out the word Rock Queen. I’m gonna glue stick these right down onto the surface of my belt. Just cut them to size. Just fits in there. If you wanted to get real precise with your edges, you could lay this down on a photocopier and just use that to build a template.

Now, I’m gonna add a fun crown. Now, this font is called a dingbat, I think. It just came with my computer. And you can just print it out on a larger size and change up the colors, and ou can keep layering these up with tons of different images or sayings.

Now for my words – Rock Queen! I’m just gonna slide that right across the glue stick, sorta overlap that right there, and there you go! I got all the paper glued down, and now I’m gonna add some glitz to this! I’m gonna start by adding some rhinestones with some jewel glue. And this stuff works great if you’re working with plastic rhinestones, because it won’t cloud up on the backs. I’m gonna use some, kind of smoky quartz color to mix in. Just going in with my toothpick, place a couple of dots of glue down there, place our rhinestones on top, now we’re getting a little glitz. There you go, I’ve got those all glued down, now. At this point, I just want to set this aside and let this dry, and I’ve got one right here that’s already been drying, and I’m gonna apply some glitter and some Mod Podge to this. Now, Mod Podge is just a decoupage medium, and I’ve got a trick for creating a really cool sparking effect with it. I’ve got some copper glitter here and it’s ultra fine, and I’m gonna mix this together. And give a really nice coat over the entire belt buckle. That’s going to seal in all of the paper, I’m going right over the rhinestones. I like to go in one direction. Trying to go horizontal, across, because your brush strokes will show a little bit. That way, you have a nice, even coat. There we go! Got that all applied. Now, at this point, you want to set this aside and let it dry, and once it’s dry, it’s gonna look just like this. Look at all that sparkle – just by adding a little bit of glitter to the mod podge. So fun!

At this point, you’re ready to just attach it to a belt. I’ve got a belt blank here, and I want to show you how to attach the belt buckle to the belt. It’s very simple. Most of these types of belts have some snaps on the back, so, all you want to do is slide that piece, right under the bar, and then you’re gonna fold back the leather flap and snap it into place. It’s as easy as that! Then your belt will loop right through there. There’s usually a little notch here and that will hook right on through, just like that. So easy! So, get creative, get crafty, and Rock On, cause they’re a cinch!

Next, release your inner rock star with a cutaway t-shirt that will turn you inside out! T-shirts will always be a wardrobe essential. I always look for cool t-shirts, and variety is pretty important, too, like this t-shirt right here!

This t-shirt is so simple to make! We’re calling these cutaway t-shirts. We made this one earlier, and all we did was layer a piece of fabric behind our t-shirt, and then we went in and stitched out this star design. We did an outside stitching, and then we did some inside, and then we just cutaway to remove the t-shirt, exposing the cool fabric underneath there.

These are super expensive at the stores, and we’re gonna show you how to make them for minimal money. This is the one that we’re gonna be making today. This is for Cathie. I drew her a fly away heart, and that’s the image we’re gonna put right down here on the sweatshirt.

Just get your image and place it where you want to on your shirt. Let me show you a little trick, here, because I’m gonna be pinning this image onto the sweatshirt, and I’m using a self-healing mat. First, we need the piece of fabric that’s gonna peek-a-boo right through that sweatshirt. There’s lots of fabrics out there. We have found that if you use medium to small prints, you’re gonna have really good success with designs that will fit on the front of the t-shirt. This design here is great, because it’s an all-over design – there’s no right or wrong direction with it. If you’re going with some kind of really serious straight lines, you may have trouble lining it up and having really good results at the end. So look for medium to small images, all over pattern, and I like to go with 100% cotton or fiber that’s comparable to the sweatshirt or t-shirt that you’re using.

So, I’m using a self-healing mat here, and I’m just gonna slide it in my sweatshirt. And I’m using this because I’m gonna be pinning the fabric to the top of my sweatshirt, and I don’t want to possibly pin underneath here. So, if you have a piece of cardboard, a magazine, self-healing mat, works fantastic. So I’m just gonna be placing my fabric right in the area that I know my image is gonna go on top, and I’m gonna take a little time with this because I absolutely don’t want any wrinkles in this before I pin it. Fold this fabric over, and then position my image right on top. As you can see, I’ve got this lean here. I kind of want it to go off a little bit on the sweatshirt here by the zipper, so I’m just gonna fold this image over, this little piece of the wing, right there. So that looks just about right – let’s pin this down!

Now, you wanna pin this really, really well so when you start stitching everything together, nothing shifts around. You may think this is over stitching, but, trust me, you’ll be glad once you start stitching! And remember, for more information on this project and all of our other great sewing projects, just log on to our website at DIYNetwork.com. And this is ready to be sewn! So, Cathie’s gonna show you how to do this – get my self-healing mat out – there we go!

So let’s get stitching. I’m using a ball point needle, and that’s kind of a rounded needle. It’s still sharp, and it’s gonna go through the fabric really smoothly and help prevent any extra fraying that may happen. I’m using a short stitch length and going very carefully over my template. This is pretty easy sewing, but it’s also really detailed, so take your time and make it look right! There we go! Trim away these threads…

OK, so the next step in this is we want to remove this paper. So, I’m just gonna slowly pull it away from the sweatshirt here. Now, don’t go crazy and pull it really quick. You want to be a little gentle with this so you’re not gonna be pulling any threads out. Sounds like you’re ripping it, but that’s just the paper! Alright! There you go – how great is that? But, we need to reveal our fabric, and to do that, we’re gonna do the cutaway part now. What I’m gonna do is just go in and grab just this back fabric and sort of hold it separate, and in the center of where we just stitched, I’m gonna go in and make a slit. Just cut right in there. Then we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna cut very close to the stitching line, about 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch. You want to get close to the line, but you don’t want to go over that line, because then you would end up cutting through your stitches.

And we’ve got ourselves one cool, cutaway design! Now, all we need to do is to go in on the backside and remove a little it of this bulk. So I’m just using some pinking shears here, and just getting close to my stitch here and just cutting away that extra bulk. You don’t need that in there…it would just be irritating!

Let me see! I think I’m gonna be wearing this for a long time! Pretty cool! From t-shirts to sweatshirts to even jeans, you can create a rock and roll cutaway on just about any piece of fabric! Coming up, we square off with a pillow project that offers star treatment. You’ve got a backstage pass, next on Creative Juice!

Remember those cutaway tees that we did earlier, like my shirt here? Well, we did the exact same technique right on top of pillows, using this red faux suede and this black…a great combination. We also did it right on top of denim, which looked great. And we have a few tips and techniques for working with different fabrics when you’re using this cutaway technique. If you’re doing it on a t-shirt or using t-shirt knit material, you’re not gonna get much fray on your cut lines, but if you’re working with denim, you may need to use a little bit of this product called Stop Fraying. What we did is, we went in with a little bit of our Stop Fraying on a paintbrush and went right around our edges. This stuff dries perfectly clear, and it goes through the laundry.

Now, we specifically made these big pillows for on top of a bed. What we’ve done is, we wanted our birds to look at each other, going left to right, so what we’ve done is. We’ve just reversed the image on one of the pillows so they can sit comfortably and watch each other, all day long!

We hope that this cutaway technique has inspired you to try some of your own! Thanks for joining us, and we’ll see you next time – see you later!